Agriculture: Crops

Crop Origins
Crop Industry
Cereals
Oilseeds
Alternative Crops
Forages
Crop Management
Marketing
Reproduction

Saskatchewan is known as the "breadbasket of the world". Cereal production continues to dominate the Province's cropping activites with about 80% of the 33 million acres seeded to cereals. About 10 million acres are usually left in summerfallow.

Spring wheat accounts for about 40 percent of the seeded acreage, and the major oilseed, canola, now accounts for 12-17% of the area. Farmers continue to diversify into speciality crops with almost 3 million acres devoted to oilseed crops such as mustard, safflower and sunflower and legumes such as peas, lentils, and fababeans.

Crop Origins
Seeds Where do our modern crops, fruits and vegetabes come from? Where were they first domesticated. Check out your ideas here.

The Crop Industry

Learn about plants used for Saskatchewan and world crops. Find out which characteristics make certain crops desirable.

Cereals
Oats
Find out about these most widely used crops for humans. Why are they grown so extensively? What limitations do they have? The oat plant seen here is one of the oldest and once one of the most important cereals. Today it has many uses from human and animal feed to cosmetics.

Oilseeds
Canola Field
Find out the many uses of oilseeds. Discover how a rarely used plant called "rapeseed" has become Saskatchewan's most popular oilseed as Canola. Learn about the wide variety of oilseeds planted in Saskatchewan and their importance as an alternative to wheat.

Alternative Crops
Carway Seed
Is caraway really grown in Saskatchewan? Are potatoes a viable crop? What good are lentils to Saskatchewan farmers? Find out how plants such as these are changing Saskatchewan's traditional agricultural production.

Forages

What green plants are best used for livestock feed? Check here.

Marketing
Exchange market
Jump to the agribusiness aspect of crop production! Learn about the Canadian Wheat Board, the Winnipeg Commodity Exchange and more.

Crop Management

Understand the dilemmas farmers face when selecting what crops to plant. Learn the cropping systems and rotations that are needed for successful crop production.

Sunflower animation Reproduction
Find out how plants produce seeds and how these seeds develop into crops we see in the fields of Saskatchewan.